I have been pulling hair for a few days on this and hoping someone can help me sort it out.

It is a fresh install of Buster in an Asus UX31A laptop that is a few years old. It has Intel graphics. I have tried installing Buster with XFCE, Cinnamon, and Mate, one DE at a time and got the same results. Black screen with a blinking cursor on the top left corner. I can go to tty screens and login from command line and try to startx. X fails to start. I have installed firmware-misc-nonfree and intel-microcode and still have the same results. I checked and saw xserver-xorg-video-intel is also there.

Currently, I installed it with Mate and LXDE. Still the same results.

Stretch was running fine on the same machine before.

Here is the information that I thought might be relevant. I would appreciate some help.

## General configuration## start-default-seat = True to always start one seat if none are defined in the configuration# greeter-user = User to run greeter as# minimum-display-number = Minimum display number to use for X servers# minimum-vt = First VT to run displays on# lock-memory = True to prevent memory from being paged to disk# user-authority-in-system-dir = True if session authority should be in the system location# guest-account-script = Script to be run to setup guest account# logind-check-graphical = True to on start seats that are marked as graphical by logind# log-directory = Directory to log information to# run-directory = Directory to put running state in# cache-directory = Directory to cache to# sessions-directory = Directory to find sessions# remote-sessions-directory = Directory to find remote sessions# greeters-directory = Directory to find greeters# backup-logs = True to move add a .old suffix to old log files when opening new ones# dbus-service = True if LightDM provides a D-Bus service to control it#[LightDM]#start-default-seat=true#greeter-user=lightdm#minimum-display-number=0#minimum-vt=7#lock-memory=true#user-authority-in-system-dir=false#guest-account-script=guest-account#logind-check-graphical=false#log-directory=/var/log/lightdm#run-directory=/var/run/lightdm#cache-directory=/var/cache/lightdm#sessions-directory=/usr/share/lightdm/sessions:/usr/share/xsessions:/usr/share/wayland-sessions#remote-sessions-directory=/usr/share/lightdm/remote-sessions#greeters-directory=$XDG_DATA_DIRS/lightdm/greeters:$XDG_DATA_DIRS/xgreeters#backup-logs=true#dbus-service=true

## Seat configuration## Seat configuration is matched against the seat name glob in the section, for example:# [Seat:*] matches all seats and is applied first.# [Seat:seat0] matches the seat named "seat0".# [Seat:seat-thin-client*] matches all seats that have names that start with "seat-thin-client".## type = Seat type (local, xremote, unity)# pam-service = PAM service to use for login# pam-autologin-service = PAM service to use for autologin# pam-greeter-service = PAM service to use for greeters# xserver-backend = X backend to use (mir)# xserver-command = X server command to run (can also contain arguments e.g. X -special-option)# xmir-command = Xmir server command to run (can also contain arguments e.g. Xmir -special-option)# xserver-config = Config file to pass to X server# xserver-layout = Layout to pass to X server# xserver-allow-tcp = True if TCP/IP connections are allowed to this X server# xserver-share = True if the X server is shared for both greeter and session# xserver-hostname = Hostname of X server (only for type=xremote)# xserver-display-number = Display number of X server (only for type=xremote)# xdmcp-manager = XDMCP manager to connect to (implies xserver-allow-tcp=true)# xdmcp-port = XDMCP UDP/IP port to communicate on# xdmcp-key = Authentication key to use for XDM-AUTHENTICATION-1 (stored in keys.conf)# unity-compositor-command = Unity compositor command to run (can also contain arguments e.g. unity-system-compositor -special-option)# unity-compositor-timeout = Number of seconds to wait for compositor to start# greeter-session = Session to load for greeter# greeter-hide-users = True to hide the user list# greeter-allow-guest = True if the greeter should show a guest login option# greeter-show-manual-login = True if the greeter should offer a manual login option# greeter-show-remote-login = True if the greeter should offer a remote login option# user-session = Session to load for users# allow-user-switching = True if allowed to switch users# allow-guest = True if guest login is allowed# guest-session = Session to load for guests (overrides user-session)# session-wrapper = Wrapper script to run session with# greeter-wrapper = Wrapper script to run greeter with# guest-wrapper = Wrapper script to run guest sessions with# display-setup-script = Script to run when starting a greeter session (runs as root)# display-stopped-script = Script to run after stopping the display server (runs as root)# greeter-setup-script = Script to run when starting a greeter (runs as root)# session-setup-script = Script to run when starting a user session (runs as root)# session-cleanup-script = Script to run when quitting a user session (runs as root)# autologin-guest = True to log in as guest by default# autologin-user = User to log in with by default (overrides autologin-guest)# autologin-user-timeout = Number of seconds to wait before loading default user# autologin-session = Session to load for automatic login (overrides user-session)# autologin-in-background = True if autologin session should not be immediately activated# exit-on-failure = True if the daemon should exit if this seat fails#[Seat:*]#type=local#pam-service=lightdm#pam-autologin-service=lightdm-autologin#pam-greeter-service=lightdm-greeter#xserver-backend=#xserver-command=X#xmir-command=Xmir#xserver-config=#xserver-layout=#xserver-allow-tcp=false#xserver-share=true#xserver-hostname=#xserver-display-number=#xdmcp-manager=#xdmcp-port=177#xdmcp-key=#unity-compositor-command=unity-system-compositor#unity-compositor-timeout=60greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter#greeter-hide-users=false#greeter-allow-guest=true#greeter-show-manual-login=false#greeter-show-remote-login=trueuser-session=mate#allow-user-switching=true#allow-guest=true#guest-session=#session-wrapper=lightdm-session#greeter-wrapper=#guest-wrapper=#display-setup-script=#display-stopped-script=#greeter-setup-script=#session-setup-script=#session-cleanup-script=#autologin-guest=false#autologin-user=#autologin-user-timeout=0#autologin-in-background=false#autologin-session=#exit-on-failure=false

## XDMCP Server configuration## enabled = True if XDMCP connections should be allowed# port = UDP/IP port to listen for connections on# listen-address = Host/address to listen for XDMCP connections (use all addresses if not present)# key = Authentication key to use for XDM-AUTHENTICATION-1 or blank to not use authentication (stored in keys.conf)# hostname = Hostname to report to XDMCP clients (defaults to system hostname if unset)## The authentication key is a 56 bit DES key specified in hex as 0xnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Alternatively# it can be a word and the first 7 characters are used as the key.#[XDMCPServer]#enabled=false#port=177#listen-address=#key=#hostname=

I have had a similar problem with intel graphics on Buster, you could try the solution that worked for me in this post and to add to that post, the xorg.conf.new might actually be in root folder (/root/xorg.conf.new) and not your current folder

@OP or @Dai_trying: would it be possible to see the full X.org configuration file?

There was a similar problem over on the Arch forums that was solved by using the Intel DDX driver instead of the modesetting driver and I would be interested to know if the auto-generated file does this.

EDIT: Yes that worked fine, I'm just going to reboot now without an xorg.conf file just to test if this error is still occuring (i can't remember if there has been any kernel updates since my install) and will report that too.

EDIT #2: The problem does still exist and so placed the skimmed xorg.conf file back and restarted lightdm and everything rosy.

I had previously reported this as a bug against the kernel as it happened to me after a kernel update although I don't recall if the xserver-xorg-core package was also updated at that time, I have sent an update to that and will wait to see if it can be changed or I need to submit a new bug report.

today i tried to upgrade my system from stretch with xfce to buster with xfce and i'm having the same problem. After the installation finishes and the system starting to reboot, i can't see anything but a black screen with a blinking cursor.

My system is a i386 pentium d, with motherboard asus P5L-MX. I don't have additional graphic card, only what the motherboard has.

I tried the procedure with the new xorg.conf file, but unfortunately after the last command "sudo service lightdm start" the problem remains the same.

I also found this bug report, which i'm not sure if it is relevant and if it is safe to do that.

I saw in a previous post of mine that i had a similar problem with GUI, when i upgraded to stretch. Today when i'm logging in as a root or as a user and i'm typing startx, i can see GUI but it has no icons in the xfce menus. I tried to open xfce-screenshooter but i can't.